Thomas Taube – The Whirr of the Image Machine

The book The Whirr of the Image Machine is a hybrid, polyphonic narrative form in which texts and images are intercut with one another. The narratives, like the images, are the work of different authors. They are positioned next to one another such that a commentary runs back and forth between them. The stories have their origins in audio interviews with nightwatchmen from all over the world, discussions that the artist Thomas Taube made a conscious choice not to conduct himself. He sent a catalogue of questions to eight different people: nightwatchmen in Kabul, Tokyo, Yaoundé, and five other cities gave accounts of their lives and the work they do during the night. Based on these night-time conversations, Taube shot the film Dark Matters (2014). The Whirr of the Image Machine is another attempt to interweave different narrative threads, this time in the form of a book.

99 pages, German/English, 16.5 x 24.5 cm, thread-sewn hardcover, Spector Books (Leipzig).